Rome—The violent deaths of 12 migrants at sea off Libya today is a sad fable about the perfect storm of chaos on the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

April 15: A drowned man pulled from Mediterranean after a boat with 400 migrants capsized.

The terrible twist was this: Some sort of fight broke out on a rubber raft crammed with around 100 sub-Saharan Africans. Muslim migrants from Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mali and Guinea Bissau attacked Christian refugees from Ghana and Nigeria on another part of the raft. At some point, the aggressors tossed Christians overboard and they drowned, Italian police said. They all had shoved off from Libya in hopes of reaching Italy; Christian passengers who were able to defend themselves told the tale upon arrival in Sicily.

Police arrested 15 men for the killings.

The shocking event brought together in a boil the concurrent situations in North Africa:

There have been a series of mass deaths of refugees at sea. In a separate incident today, a migrant ship sunk and 41 people are missing. Four-hundred died the day before.

The anarchy in Libya has put wild migration in the hands of armed mafias that shepherd the travelers through war-torn Libya, charge them hundreds or even thousands of dollars and then put them on unseaworthy boats to cross the Mediterranean.

The vicious sectarian warfare that marks conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Libya, with its emblematic Muslim assaults on Christians, can even bleed onto boat of desperate wanderers.

It’s a grim scenario. And no one has a different script on offer, neither in Libya, Italy, Europe nor Washington.

I am a former correspondent who, for more than 30 years, did time in China, Southeast Asia, Central America, Mexico, the Middle East, Europe and Africa and covered wars that went from episodic to non-stop. My book, "Forsaken," about Christian persecution in the Middle East came out January, 2016.
NextWarNotes is a news and analysis blog designed to fill gaps, give background and look at what’s next.
The name of the site comes from a 1935 Esquire Magazine article by Ernest Hemingway called “Notes on the Next War,” in which he predicted the coming conflagration in Europe, told why it would happen and warned Americans to stay out.

I am a former correspondent who, for more than 30 years, did time in China, Southeast Asia, Central America, Mexico, the Middle East, Europe and Africa and covered wars that went from episodic to non-stop. My book, "Forsaken," about Christian persecution in the Middle East came out January, 2016.
NextWarNotes is a news and analysis blog designed to fill gaps, give background and look at what’s next.
The name of the site comes from a 1935 Esquire Magazine article by Ernest Hemingway called “Notes on the Next War,” in which he predicted the coming conflagration in Europe, told why it would happen and warned Americans to stay out.